The Healing (The Things We Can't Change Book 3) by Kassandra Kush Page A

want to feel it. “What happened, Evie? Just tell me what happened to make you call me. I’m glad you did, but you need to tell me.”
    I hear her take a few hiccupy breaths, and then she whispers, “I was in the kitchen. I was trying to get food, and I just wasn’t thinking. I opened a drawer, and there are knives in here, Zeke. And now… and now… now I can’t. Close. The damn. Drawer!”
    Goosebumps crawl all over my skin, and I want to immediately bust out of the kitchen and just run to her house, run there and tackle her down and keep her from hurting herself. She’s clearly not all there in the head at the moment, because she says there are knives in the drawer accusingly, as if it’s ludicrous for a kitchen to have sharp implements.
    “You can close it,” I say encouragingly. “I know you can, Evie. You’re stronger than you think. And just because it’s open doesn’t mean you need to… to cut. You know what I’m saying?”
    There’s silence, so much silence and I feel I could jump out of my skin, wonder if I am doing anything at all to talk her off the ledge. I can’t stay here. I need to get to her.
    “But… I need to get it all out ,” Evie whispers.
    “Evie, don’t !” I order, and I hear her gasp a sob.
    “Sometimes I can’t help it!” she wails, and while I want to think her weak, stupid and foolish for saying sometimes she can’t help cutting her own arm open, I know how she feels. How I felt every single time I accepted that can of spray paint, every time I pressed that nozzle, even though I’d already been arrested for the same thing so many times. Sometimes, all that matters is what’s going on inside your own head, and the way to get it out. And Evie and I both seem to have only one way to escape it, and it’s damaging for both of us.
    “Don’t do anything,” I order, my tone hard. “I mean it, Evie. I’m on my way. Wait until I get there.”
    I hang up the phone and push through the doors of the kitchen, just barely not banging through them with unnecessary force. I go up to the bar as quickly as I dare, in a sort of calm half-run, slamming into the counter because I'm unwilling to slow down in the slightest. Alex raises his eyebrows at me and opens his mouth to give some kind of lecture but I speak first.
    “I need to leave,” I say without preamble. “Just for like half an hour. It's important, Alex. Like, really, really important.”
    “Important enough I should let you just leave, with four tables on your tab?” Alex asks, rolling his eyes. “Really, Zeke?”
    “Yes.” I say it firmly, with as much emotion as I’ll allow myself to interject. “It’s a life or death matter. I'm not fucking with you, Alex. I need just half an hour. And, um, your car, too.”
    Something in my tone must alert Alex to the fact that I’m dead serious, because he finally looks over at me and really looks me in the eye. Then he gives a defeated sigh. “Don't even tell me this is about-”
    “Evangeline Parker, yes it is. I shouldn’t even get involved, I know. News flash, Alex, I want to be involved even less than you want me involved, but unless we both want something really bad on our consciences, then you need to let me use your car .”
    He debates for just a second longer, but then passes over the keys. I grab them and am gone, flying around the edge of the dining hall and out the nearest door. I slide into Alex’s Infiniti—amazing that he let me borrow it with as little inquisition as he did, considering it’s his prize possession—and turn the engine over, peeling out of the lot.
    It takes all I have not to speed directly over to Riverside Drive. Getting a ticket won't help Evie or me, and so I force myself to follow the speed limits, even though it feels like walking would have been faster, especially with the heavy rain that is falling. Finally, I'm pulling into Evie's driveway, dashing out of the car and leaving the driver’s side door open, keys still in the